


sacred gold

by romanesquisse



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: HeartGold & SoulSilver | Pokemon HeartGold & SoulSilver Versions
Genre: ethan as the ethan in TornWrites' silver verse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:07:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27850534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanesquisse/pseuds/romanesquisse
Summary: Instead of gentle ripples along the water, he comes back like a blinding light, scorching the skin with a halo of salvation; remaining ever mortal, but with each step people know—left and right—that he should be flying instead.(Or: a collection of times Ethan struggled with being both divine and human.)
Kudos: 7





	sacred gold

It's both death and rebirth when he returns.

In his mind, he still vividly hears wings fluttering above his head. These are stories only he can tell—and arrogant is Ethan that only he hears the whispers hidden in the breeze—but all of the places he had been to, cherished, even, were places where the sun felt distant.

So unlike Johto. And there was no cold like Johto, either. Sinnoh had left him freezing; the tip of his fingers barely moved a millimeter when he tried to reach for the poké ball, his breath forming clouds when he tried to talk. Chapped lips, chapped lips. But it is different—unfamiliar, new—when he puts the memory next to his trembling feet and the gaze that pierced him when he met his hero—

—and the eventual unraveling of truths. It's both death and rebirth when he returns, with a reminder that the hero was a child and after defeating, it felt like there had been nothing more in his home for him. The errand boy won the crown and saw past how it shone, deciding that the four walls he would have to stay in were not for him. (Maybe it was responsibility avoided, an escape, but Ethan tells himself time and time and time again that he made the right decision—because Johto doesn't deserve a champion half-hearted at his job when the wind is calling for him, does it?)

But sometimes the same wind leads you home. (He carries along his precarious heart because Johto will always find him, regardless of anything and because of everything.) Ethan's face twists into a scowl when his phone fails to send the message, until, finally, the little check appears.

Ethan waits for his friend. (Or: Ethan waits for the storm to come, and he braces himself, because even gods must prepare for the worst.)


End file.
